Yet I made an effort to withstand her. "You forget the door," I said. "If the door is locked, and Mrs. Harris sleeps in the next room, how can it be done?" "Not by the door, but by the window," she replied. "There is a ladder in the second garden from this; and the latch of the window is weak. The old fool indoors sleeps like a hog. By eleven she will be sound. And oh, Dick!" my mistress cried, breaking down on a sudden and snatching my hands to her bosom, "will you see me shamed? Play the man for ten minutes only--for ten minutes only, and by morning we shall be safe, and far from here! And--and together, Dick! Together!" Was it likely, I ask, was it possible that I should long resist pleading such as this? That holding her in my arms, in the warm summer night, with her hair on my breast, while the moon sailed overhead and a cricket chirped in the wall hard by--was it likely or possible, I say, that I should steel my heart against her; that I should turn from the cup of pleasure, who had tasted as yet so few delights, and drudged and been stinted all my life? Whose appetite had known no daintier relish than the dull round of dumpling and bacon, or at the best salt meat and spinach; and who for sole companionship had been shut in, June days and December nights alike, with a band of mischievous boys, whom the ancients justly called _genus improbum_. At any rate I did not; to my shame, great or small, according as I shall be harshly or charitably judged--I did not; but with a beating heart and choked voice, I gave my word and left her; and an hour later I crept down the creaking stairs for the last time, guilty and shivering, a bundle in my hand, and found her waiting for me in the old place. I confess that the flurry of my spirits in this crisis was such as to disturb my judgment; and my passion for my mistress being no longer of the higher kind, these two things may account for the fact that I felt no wonder or repulsion when she explained to me, coolly and in detail, where the bureau stood, and in what part of it lay the money; even adding that I had better bring away a pair of silver candlesticks which I should find in another place. By the time she had made these things clear to me, the favourable moment was come; the lights of the town had long been extinguished, and the house obscuring the moon cast a black shadow on the garden, that greatly seconded our movements. Yet for myself, and though all went well with us, I trembled at the faintest sound, and started if a leaf stirred; nay, to this day I willingly believe that the smallest trifle, a light at a window or a distant voice, would have deterred me from the adventure. But nothing occurred to hinder or alarm; and the darkness cloaking us only too effectually, and my accomplice directing me where to find the ladder, I fetched it, and with her help thrust it over the fence and climbed over after it.